Vote or Walk.

By admin | Published: November 7, 2005

It seemed to me that you could barely tell there was an election going on. Turns out most people think the Bloomberg campaign’s ubiquity has crossed from being vaguely unseemly to gratuitous in its disproportionate advantage. I’m not one of those people, but only because I don’t know what they are talking about. Likely the evidence is broadcast television, but I’m one of those superior liberal types that doesn’t have one, so until the news articles started appearing about the discrepancy, I was under the impression that no one even noticed there was an election upcoming.

With some reports indicating a 30 percent gap between the candidates, it could be argued that there isn’t. Since this is concise operation, there is little need for the formalities of an endorsement: I’m voting for Bloomberg, on the Independence line (in and of itself a challenging decision, but recent efforts at the state level to remove the ‘colorful’ Fulani faction should attenuate these concerns somewhat).

It’s hard to draw apples-to-apples comparisons between the candidates. Borough President is a manifestly different role in the city from other positions of power (Council Speaker, Mayor, etc.). Ferrer, to his credit, toes an impressive line when it comes to ‘traditional’ liberal causes. His speech on housing is an impressive outline of issues facing the city, and it is filled with commitments to respond. But his criticisms of Bloomberg are a little over-drawn (the Mayor committed to 65,000 new units in five years; 40% of the way, he has delivered only 20% of the units — a gap possibly a result of the ramp-up to getting projects on line, and resulting in the bulk coming in later years), and he isn’t actually promising much more (his 175,000 number is drawn from both new projects and protecting existing programs — which Bloomberg is committed to as well).

But it’s pretty easy to look good on housing; the situation is so abysmal, you can manufacture talking points of the air, and they all look good. So what are some of the other issues that this site focuses on where one might find demonstrable differences between the two?

There has been plenty of discussion and criticism of the Mayor regarding large-scale development in the city. There is little to be found of Bloomberg’s excellence in delegation and bureaucratic wrangling when it comes to city planning, the appointment of Amanda Burden notwithstanding. The Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards proposals, while nominally the work of the MTA, are clearly identified with the Mayor, and have next to no vision beyond bland, large-scale developer-friendly lots and prototypes. A likely defensive need to pander made Bloomberg suddenly reverse his position on the Cross-Harbor Tunnel project. The brightest spot of late, coming out in favor removing Silverstein from the WTC rebuilding process, backfired because it was politically naïve (the centerpiece of his alternative — housing — is next to impossible under current conditions).

So are we to conclude that Bloomberg can only hit sour notes when he reaches for the crescendo? Maybe, maybe not. The smoking ban is one of the most dramatic public life policy decisions to happen in a generation. Even though he hasn’t done anything particularly positive for nightlife culture, there is a palpable détente. And Bloomberg is an ardent supporter of the arts. While none of these positions are particularly progressive, they are also a welcome revision from the previous administration.

Bloomberg the bureaucrat would tell you we aren’t out of the woods yet. We are still decades from resolving long-term pension obligations (and that doesn’t mean jettisoning our duties to public employees, but instead finding ways to make the system sustainable, likely through defined contribution plans, not defined benefits, which will have everyone working in this town in ten years wanting to scrap the whole system), burdened by massive mandates for health-care, and have an increasingly monolithic economic base. None of these make for exciting policy speeches, and the attention they require leave you open to attacks of being unsympathetic to the difficulties of the working class or worse.

I can’t provide any masterstroke of logic. But in a town where every public position is for the taking by Democrats, that they haven’t fielded an inspiring candidate is no different than the far-left argument against Al Gore (that if you couldn’t handily find a way to beat a favored son of Texas who managed to lose money in the oil business, you deserve whatever you get). Perhaps that sense of entitlement is what led us to where we are today: making pragmatic decisions that rankle the sense that we shouldn’t suffer excuses or balkanized petty chiefs.

But whatever you do, make sure to vote, and make sure to support the MTA. The MTA is a stupendously mismanaged entity much of the time, but withholding funding won’t resolve that problem. Reserve that anger for the next governor’s election. Vote Yes on 2. Yes on 2. Yes on 2. Second Avenue Subway=2 (more or less, but think “Two for Two”). Yes. Do it.

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The Fish Market is Dead, Long Live the Fish Market.

By admin | Published: November 4, 2005

So the fish market is moving. Maybe. There has been some talk, but nothing specific has happened this week, only stray notices here and there, people dusting off oft-used paeans to the dwindling manufacturing base, finding the most colorful anecdote they can, and you can practically hear the syrupy violin music accompanied by the long dissolve.

The reason it occurred to me was a recent afternoon reading Phillip Lopate’s Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan (a good book, though such an arbitrary structure means the concept gets thin in places — a danger this site is acute aware of — and the word peripatetic is a little overused), which has a chapter on, yes, the Fulton Fish Market (replete with the ubiquitous Dave Pasternak, proprietor of Esca, and go-to figure when one wants a good pull quote on crudo). It’s as a good as any other, though somehow he missed the cigarette woman. Written four years ago, it takes a decidedly skeptic position on the likelihood of the relocation, which has been discussed, planned for, and even, at times, seemingly underway for most of the last century.

No longer dependent on the river as a source of inventory, the market succeeds for the same reasons any established business does: traditional, efficacy, and a presumption of superior quality, prices, and not wee bit of color. Oh, yes, and the mob. That always minimizes competition. The culture of these places gets confused in the external reading: middle class appropriated nostalgia and envy reduces the image we understand to cutouts and stereotypes. With every bland desk job in danger of shipment off to far away lands where they have better grammar and lower wages, the middle-managers of industry and media flatten every backbreaking schlub into an old salt with a clever nickname, and then attempt to jettison their workplace.

What occurred to me in reading the article was: I don’t understand why it has to move. Isn’t it the perfect definition of mixed use? Hardly anyone is ever around to actually see it, it provides jobs, a reasonable service (being proximate to most of their important customers), and is centrally located (allowing only for its unique hours of operation). Most importantly, it makes Manhattan look like, well, Manhattan. The only shred of authenticity in the abysmal failure that is the South Street Seaport, what kind of renaissance are we to expect once it’s gone? An additional outpost for Lids? There are the standard complaints: noise, mob influence, but mostly the smell. Ooh, the smell of fish. Strange thing, that, right next to the ocean. Yes, it can be gamey in places, but I regularly walk and jog that route, and once the market goes, they aren’t going to remove the pier currently operated by the sanitation department, and I’ve gone by trash compactors at the housing complexes that line South Street and there’s no lack of competition there for the aromatic. And I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but the smell of offal (and I’m not talking C-List models and IB-guys) hasn’t tempered the wild success of the other major food market/entertainment destination in the city.

You can’t manufacture scenes, especially in New York. Times’ Square worked because it was a destination that simply had all the culture scrubbed away. The South Street Seaport was never a logical tourist locale, and whatever Rouse thinks they are good at, they aren’t good at it here. If it weren’t for the fish market, most of us would probably forget that it is even there.

I’ve never been to the fish market. I probably never will, even if it doesn’t move next week. But that’s because I wouldn’t do much besides gawk and hope to see some bit of local color myself. I don’t need that any more than those who actually do work there. Because it’s not a Disney ride, but people trying to hold down a job, pay the mortgage, and not get a crippling disability in the course of carrying around frozen hunks of fish. But it is more of what we think of our town than any sanitized corporate sports bar experience, and I don’t understand the urgency to blot it out.

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Parade of Fools.

By admin | Published: October 31, 2005

I don’t like parades. Are you surprised? It’s not the result of some deep-seated horror the result of a bad clown experience, but rather the glib artifice that is reduced to the most neutered spectacle possible. The aura of all sign and no signified that pervades the few I’ve attended in the past ten years is relentless.

This is not the fault of many of the participants, particularly those in the Pride Parade, or Mermaid Day, or even tonight — which, if you read the sanitized history as the ‘official‘ site, doesn’t mention that the wide open participatory nature means political/social commentary costumes make it far more interesting than just playing dress up — none of whom would be able to get within twenty miles of Orlando without arrest.

The Disnefication is a result of the management evidenced at each in the form of crowd and traffic control by the police. The stagy nature that results (people wait patiently — of if not, at least without evident agitation — to cross, the route never deviates) makes what one sees, no matter how outre, look about as dangerous (and unattractive, in many cases) as public access cable. Now, if Gregg Brown was grand marshal, who knows what kind of fun would be had (an aside — the web truly ruins the scary attic that was public access. Concrete TV has a website, right? I’m not even going to Google that. I don’t want to know).

But even if police control of nearly seven foot tall (in heels), sweaty and preening drag queens doesn’t render the events as cartoon, then the army of hipster documentarians will. The last Mermaid Day parade I went to was so awash in Leicas that there was no danger of one having theirs stolen, since everyone had one. For every overweight, naked, painted-green man living the alternative dream, there were eight photographers. And this was a good five years before the words ‘photo blogger’ had entered the media lexicon.

The history of parades is highly contested: they have been used as tools of social control (through the ominous and/or inspiring display of martial force) and spontaneous (or contrived) demonstrations of resistance. But in both cases, they are clear assertions of authority by a group wishing to institute control of public space. Any group that sponsors a gathering recognizes this, which is why IGLO’s yearly battle with the Hibernians will continue indefinitely, and the NYPD treats Critical Mass as if Sendero Luminoso had come ashore at Pier 17.

Though we no longer have demonstrations of military power (unless of course, one counts St. Patrick’s), we don’t much have labor marches either. It seems we are afforded only one marginal group per generation. Critical Mass is this generation’s ACT UP! It would be unfair to argue that “back in the day” public protest was more freely expressed: people died at Haymarket. We all live in a gauzy nostalgia that releases us from actually putting our politics at risk, and so we are happy for the sliver of malcontents who continue to flock to Tompkins as a matter of fashion, figuring they will get around to rioting sooner or later, and we can pat ourselves on the back, and then dress up as Ionesco character for the Halloween Parade. So witty, us.

But the streets aren’t entirely policed. There are smaller rituals that occur with enough elasticity (and I’m not talking about the New Jersey/UES Interlopers Association that has its weekly parade on Avenue B) that it feels like people can congregate and march of their own volition and without oversight. There is a yearly garden blessing parade in the East Village; a Cinco de Mayo parade, if I remember, as well. There’s even the Idiotarod. And the cutesy, ready for its Crispin Porter + Bogusky close-up, Chegwin. I hear that they do all kinds of crazy stuff out there in Williamsburg (but don’t try and go there — you’ll ruin it!).

These exemplify the two strands of New York culture we desperately believe still persist: social justice, and clever, insidery, making-of-history moments. Every drunken stumble down the street that isn’t accompanied by some permutation of “What do we want? [a new and original chant for lefty protests!] When do we want it? [yesterday!]” is hoping it will end up as storied as Duchamp climbing the Washington Square Monument.

So make your way over to Sixth Avenue, and cheer in some self-satisfied Park Slope way at all the folks that were going as Harriet Miers and had to rejigger suddenly to go as Karl Rove in handcuffs. Or the hordes of slutty nurses, slutty teachers, or slutty sluts. A slutty Harriet Miers, that would be inspired. Or, you know, don’t, because there will be two dozen photo bloggers tomorrow that will make it look more interesting than it was.

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Who Do You Love?

By admin | Published: October 26, 2005

In hopes of finding new ways to be of use to those of you who find the time to read this, and because I can’t write every day about the stupidity that pervades the WTC planning, I’m casting about for some new ‘features’, particularly some that might, um, write themselves a little bit. One of the motivations for starting this was a consistent frustration that there weren’t places where you could find detailed discussions about the minutiae of what designers and planners do and why these things might be of interest to the layperson — to both inspire them to be more active in voicing their opinions in ways that might improve their community, and encourage investment in the services these people offer.

Because there is enough of a professional community here, one can live pretty comfortably inside it (though I don’t). Out in the sticks, well, it’s a different story. When all the ‘interesting’ architects can fit in the same cab (if your town even has them), it means by default you find your way into the wider world. But here, things can get cloistered, and even though it may be edifying at time, it can also be stultifying.

Nonetheless, some of these people were my heroes back in school, and now I live just around the corner from many of them. I think it would be interesting to meet Steven Holl or Richard Gluckman. Anyone having done what they do would make for interesting conversation. And there are people in this town who live just to meet people like that — well perhaps they don’t live for it, but such encounters make for some kind of rationalization or justification for other slights or compromises that make the banal and challenging days that we traverse most times seem more worthwhile. Sure, this town lives off name-checking and dropping, but I don’t need it myself.

I wanted to, want to, meet people like these because, well, I like thinking about buildings: how they are conceived, how they get made, and who (clients, staff and consultants) does it. This last characteristic is the most ephemeral, and often what elevates those fortunate enough to make to the upper echelon.

But it’s a real challenge to actually do any of this once you become a Steven Holl, or, worse, Richard Meier (once, I called SCI-ARC hoping to speak to Mike Davis — Mike Davis! — for five minutes; the secretary told me he got 4 or 5 calls a day from, say, Australia, students asking for the same thing). It’s all meetings, PR, teaching and networking. Whether you are cagey (after all, who wants to give up the details on their contacts?) or simply frustrated, no one really wants to talk in detail about that aspect of practice. Even though it is interesting to practitioners, I operate in the limited hope that people who aren’t read this site occasionally. And stories of how buildings get made and used are what make the idea of architecture relevant to everyone else. Architects aren’t needed to get a building made in many instances, but often are essential to make one good (regardless of how I mean I am to them most of the time).

So this is an open call for three things:

1 — Small firms. Start ups, either splinters from larger firms, or people just going at it cold. I’ve always been frustrated that professional journals do a poor job of publicizing the work of younger firms, often because it’�s not as sexy, but I don’t have any pressure to print glossy photos here. I want to publish sketches, plans, unrealized ideas, anything that’s an argument, concept or obsession (the mechanics of this as still unresolved, so I’m not promising a polished portfolio). It can be much more than that as well. This blog is supposed to revolutionary and all, so let’s revolutionize how small firms get noticed.

2 — The small names at big firms. I don’t mean to insult with that appellation (the exigencies of needing a clever turn of a phrase). I know that there are many talented people inside the larger nameplate firms with Associate, Junior or Senior Partner titles, of whatever nomenclature is used to keep their name off the door. These are the people who have a substantial role in shaping both individual projects and the style we come to associate with a particular firm. Being a relative outsider, I don’t even know the names, though they are likley better known in the professional community. I’�d like to profile people and projects (so if you can’�t talk about being in that role, but can showcase a particular project, that’s still of interest here) from larger firms, but I’m not looking for PR from the marketing department. I’d like to actually hear from the people doing it.

3 — Owners, Clients, Patrons. Easy enough to figure out. Have you ever though about or actually given money to an architect: for work, for fun, because you thought building a house just wasn’t hard enough without an architect giving you grief? Did it go great? Bad? Can you talk about specific points where the process absolutely made a difference in where you now live or work?

The only ground rules for the above is location, location, location. Since I write primarily about New York, my preference would be both people and projects that are regional. But if one element relates to the city in some fashion (small firm does project elsewhere? check) do contact me (there’s an email link there to the right). Even if you don’t think the story qualifies, send it anyway. I’m happy to pimp for anyone who does something I admire. But, by now, this forewarning shouldn’t be necessary: I don’t get excited that often. But I’m working on being nicer. Honest.

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It may well develop that there are 16 arces of sacred gound in China.

By admin | Published: October 24, 2005

Ground Zero is spiraling every deeper into a Derridean nightmare, a farce that manages to interweave Seinfeld-esque concentric circles of absurd nothingness with every tautly argued theory of postmodern regression. Oh, wait, those are the same thing. Can we go home yet?

No, we learned abruptly that morning four years ago, yet are still reminded regularly every time the preznit wants to distract from his abysmal efforts to ape leadership or hand a pile of money to a crony — for him, the same thing — and no, we can’t. Not having produced any commentary in a timely fashion means I keep tearing up (a nice anachronism, no?) copy as a fresh absurdity is delivered. So a quick recap:

ACT I. Braying of the Families reaches the usually tone deaf ears of the governor. New boundaries of sacredness are established, and institutions with names like ‘Freedom’ are thusly banned. People resign, everyone looks askance, embarrassed by this charade of public review, but quiet sighs are released, figuring the worst elements will now be silent.

ACT II. The Families pull a fast one, decrying the previously heralded PATH station as likewise invalid. Apparently commuting is as morally repugnant as a photo of MLK, a coincidence which begs for an ironic Rosa Parks comment.

The source of this new friction is not the just-add-water tour de force of Calatrava’s glassine hat, but instead with the location of the train tunnels proper. The PATH station is a loop that encompasses most of the 16 acre parcel of the WTC site, and a portion of tunnels cut beneath the Sacred Footprints (TM pending, I expect) and the Memorial Quadrant (likewise), a fact that was discussed in a cursory way at the outset of the site planning, but there was a quiet, if ugly, tacit agreement that, well, there’s sacred, and then there’s sacred, and no one really wanted to put a price tag on that… until now.

[Interlude] One does admire the dogged and argumentatively rigorous stance of the Families. I had drafted and discarded posts in the past about the hypocrisy of attacking the various cultural program elements but remaining silent about the incursion of the train lines. But rather than simply rest on their ludicrous laurels, they began what might be a whisper campaign against the performing arts building — which is clearly outside the Sacred Quadrant (and cheek and jowl with the Freedom Tower), not to mention quite a ways from any practical realization — meaning we now should now perhaps start saying the Memorial Irregular Polygon.

ACT III. Last week, however, the stakes were upped considerably, when the PANYNJ brought out the BFG: Shopping. Every two-bit wingnut ideologue can take a piece out of a art-based non-profit, but Shopping, well, we’re in the cornerstone of American identity territory (one would have argued Freedom was similarly one, but Curious George dispelled that misconception several weeks ago). Renderings of the Calatrava vitrine enrobed in some of New York’s finest brand logos were released last week, carefully qualified by the promise that ‘no’ retail would be permitted within the Quadrant. Perhaps the PANYNJ wasn’t cc’d about the new Boundary of Sacredness. And Kenneth Ringler, the authority’s executive director, apparently hasn’t looked at a master plan lately — the last one I saw was the proverbial spaghetti mess of services and interconnections that stray throughout the quadrant. It should be an interesting experience; perhaps they will have a large line painted on the concourse to denote the sacred and the profane. Watch out Metro hawkers! The Families have yet to pass judgment on this, but I imagine it’s because there isn’t anything to attack yet — the renderings were entirely speculative, lacking any committed tenants.

ACT IV. Speaking of large blocks of untenanted space, Mike Bloomberg stopped his campaign finance printing press long enough to intone that perhaps, Larry, It Is Time To Go. Perhaps this is Bloomberg’s legacy gambit, as some have suggested even before his power play. It should be noted that Silverstein has about four billion good reasons why he thinks he will still have a say.

And though I agree wholeheartedly with the mayor, the dim spot in his technocratic, delegation-is-hott mayoralty has been to reach out to developers and planners who subscribe whole-heatedly to the soul-crushing bland corporatism championed by the Maestro of Mediocrity, David Childs. What’s he going to do, replace Silverstein with Boston Properties? Ratner? Brookfield? Vornado? The list is as dull as it is long.

There is no real coda to this tale; all we can expect is Dan Doctoroff to burst through the door like Kramer, to lusty cheers and inexplicable laughter.

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Bread and circuses. And pro football.

By admin | Published: October 11, 2005

Empires crumble. Sometimes in a big way, though we seem to lack the capacity to think so expansively. Our empires are now tiny things, inflated by the empty promise of television, small men writ large with the aid of buildings the clamber skyward sans distinguishing features, as if any pause would prompt the viewer to realize the entire edifice was merely charade.

Mayor Bloomberg, on the cusp of his second term, faces the same issue as Giuliani, which is the quest for legacy, though I suspect it doesn’t gnaw at him the same way it did Rudy — who became the recipient of the most perverse and unnecessary deux ex machinas one will find the annals of political history.

With the Olympics gone, the Jets and Giants safely nestled in the most optimal location for a sports stadium in the country, and the ‘Memorial Quadrant’ safe from rational thought and girded by its inevitable substitute, shopping, there isn’t much left for Mike. He can’t even get the fish market to move (though the failure can be squarely attributed to Giuliani, who, even as he might excel at mob-busting, doesn’t know squat when it comes to contract law).

It’s not like there aren’t major initiatives happening in the city, but even if one of them sprung fully realized from the earth tomorrow, a visitor would not look twice at the results and imagine anything exceptional had transpired. Be it the Williamsburg rezoning, the Hudson or Atlantic Yards, all of it is awash in the ugly repetitive logic of large scale commercial development. This does seem to be the thing Bloomberg is most comfortable with; hell, he even went and built his own bland anonymous corporate tower (while he was mayor — talk about multitasking).

The abject failure of Westway, and the rise of the uniquely New York type — the under-accomplished pretend liberal that decides to forge their identity by playing martyr while claiming it is in the service of good urban planning — means that any time someone wants to building anything larger than a Starbucks (and even that has its problems) it will be bogged down in every direction, and forced to dliute any vision in the form of incremental payoffs. It used to be much easier when the machine and mob took their cut in cash and left the buildings largely intact. Now everything is mixed use hell, posturing and hairshirts for some aggrieved constituency.

[Anyone who has made it through more than half a post here knows this is not a call for untrammeled developer freedom. As usual, I make my call to ship the lot of them to Dallas, which seems to reflect their vision of urbanity far more accurately.]

Where can one go to find a place to make a lasting contribution? One that doesn’t just emblazon a façade with the progenitor’s name in garish bronze letters, but the very utility and experience of which becomes part of our urban fabric and history. One that we cherish and laud — at least until someone future version of Bruce Ratner comes along and puts a mall there.

Even as it doesn’t seem that way most days (especially if you live and work in Manhattan) that the history of NewYork is a history of working class people being afforded an opportunity to rise economically and socially, all while being cheek and jowl with some of the most extraordinary arts, research and industry (to say nothing of the scads of well-to-do, beneficiaries of random selection and those soaring high on exceptional talent) to be found in the world. It could be argued in many ways that New York invented diversity, and has been the tireless champion of the concept for decades.

Consequently, the physical markers of this accomplishment that stand out are those that accentuate the overlap and interrelations that form this diversity: infrastructure and housing. Though both are nominally egalitarian, that has never been the appeal for most New Yorkers. Rather it is the enforced intimacy of space, access and, at times, law, that has mandated that we all end up spending more time than we like with people we don’t.

This friction is the lubricant of endless Metropolitan Diary entries, precious Talk of the Town pieces (oh, and, hey, a blog entry or two) and, occasionally true insight into that continually less optimistic circumstance we quaintly call the human condition.

So what can Mike do to stamp his name indelibly on the city? Sure, Namath guaranteeing the Super Bowl seemed to be the sort of cultural moment that justifies a Quixotic pursuit of a stadium. But who was the mayor at the time? Right. It was a guy who didn’t get reelected because he couldn’t get the streets plowed on time (though that is a bit of apocrypha, since he actually did, though it seems he bribed every city employee at the time to manage it).

So that leaves what my dear, departing for the left coast friend Will use to say during his nascent years as stand-up comic: in New York, people talk about real estate and how they get there. Pick one, pick both: housing and transit. And we’re not talking some namby-pamby 7 extension here. We’re talking decades of irrefutable evidence about the economic benefits (in reduced strain on resources, increased property values, job growth, you name it) of adding train lines to the city. Second Avenue is where it’s at.

And the people riding those trains need some place to live. SoHo. TriBeCa. Stuyvesant. EV.LES. Williamsburg. These places aren’t appealing for the same reason. And none of the resonate because they have large column-free floorplates of commercial space. They all became what they are because they became desirable places to live. Most of them were enabled by various forms of government intervention, control or incentive. We need a Mitchell-Lama or revamped rent stabilization for the 21st century. And it is not to be found on the boards of Costas Kondylis’s office or the barren environs of Sixth Avenue. Or the twisted mind-meld of Frank “Fight Club” Ghery and Bruce “Bland Club” Ratner. It looks to be a easy walk to another four years. After all the “I’m just a technocrat who is trying to make the city run like a business” it’s time ante up and acknowledge what has providing enduring value — cultural and economic — and find a way to foster that, before we get crushed by entities with name like Avalon Bay. Ugh.

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Fuck you heroes, Redux.

By admin | Published: October 11, 2005

The LEVS is a gift that keeps on giving. Even as each block seems to fold in on itself as a parody of urban chic — if such a thing ever existed — you think, no, it’s not possible to find an even richer example of absurd and apparent evidence. Be it the throngs of people that can no longer even be termed derisively as B&T — no, these folks looking they are from Iowa — that line Avenue B well into the night, or as long as they can find cabs to return them from whence they came, or the appearance of a new drinking establishment that manages to push the irony mercury just a little higher, it looks like Rome here more and more every day. We even get the vomit.

I do my best to proviide you little snippets of this bountiful tapestry. Today’s installment is again a snapshot of that nebulous constituency of skate punks/street artists, who exist in my mind as one, long, unbroken chain of Ecko clothing, Alife stickers and very suburban angst. I’d try and work in a music reference, but exactly who these people venerate now days is thankfully a mystery, my knowledge stopping somewhere around the time of Agent Orange and Vans.

Anyhoo, this bit of preciousness happened on Essex Street, as I was exiting the F. I look idly to my left and see to nattily attired (for them) skater dudes. They were standing at the trunk of a late model BMW — there used to be a time where I could identify a model at a glance; those days have passed, but I hazard that though it wasn’t a 3-series, nor was it some fancy M thing either — taking out their skateboards. They deposited them on the pavement and, well, skated off, I’m sure to convince people a block north that they were firmly ensconced in whatever passes for punk/hipster life these days. Remember, skateboarding is not a crime, especially when your sag equipment is a European sedan.

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Brad Cloepfil is going to start the demo with a sledge engraved with ‘Santa Maria’.

By admin | Published: October 10, 2005

My formative years, and perhaps those responsbile for my bad attitude, were spent in the south. A roommate in the early years was a fella, though not southern, who took to the spirit of redneck chivalry rather adroitly. Eschewing architecture for preservation, mostly because he had a hankering — and talent — for woodworking, he bought a pickup and befriended more locals than students.

He spent afternoons driving around, a ritual that included lots of whistling at southern belles. He was the charming sort who could get away with backing up an entire block to smile at a stranger, fully expecting acknowledgment. Like any roué, failure or success did not deter. One day he called out enthusiastically at a woman who I wouldn’t normally characterize as a recipient of such attentions. Pointing this out, he replied with the rationalization, “Like my grandpappy always said: ‘Sometime you gottta whistle at the ugly ones!’”.

That comment is the essence of the limits of preservation, particularly to designers. Last week, the AIA celebrated Architecture Week by thumbing its nose at the segment of the preservation community one might called blue-haired, hosting Brad Cloepfil, who didn’t mince words, telling everyone that 2 Columbus Circle was a one of the ugly ones, and he wasn’t willing to turn his head even an inch to acknowledge it. Rick Bell gave him big props, reiterating the position of the local AIA (and insuring Bob Stern won’t be writing any checks any time soon) that there is no merit to continuing any preservation hearings on its behalf.

Thanks to the dimwitted critical skills championed by our preznit, we have become a culture of strident myopia, so this, like the discussion (a termed used very charitably) about the WTC site, this one has devolved into one either being against design quality in favor of blind historicism, or an example of screaming hypocrisy on the part of architects who demand preservation of questionable buildings and then turn a blind eye the minute an opportunity arises.

Though I’m clearly partisan, the reason this debate continues at all has to do with the poorly articulated vision of preservation — or its outright misrepresentation — by the Landmarks West! people, who are persisting, even in the face of eight lawsuits. The ever present cudgel of Penn Station is raised over the shoulders by every group or person that finds some corner of their world is about to be changed without adequate consult. Every stick, crack in the sidewalk, or dying shrub becomes a potential Penn Station. Save it all!

People like old buildings. I do. And when you only have, say, ten of them from 400 years ago, you probably should try and keep them around. But most people tend to lose their stridency when the find out preservation often means they can’t pick a paint color, or put a sun porch out back. They will like it even less if they find out that it means that have to keep things like Westin Times Square around, well, indefinitely.

Good preservation is inherently, like any good design practice, an exercise in taste making. Our strange obsession with a charade of meritocracy and egalitarianism, which seems not to infect areas where physical dexterity or other outward skills are required, empowers people who — let’s put this delicately — shouldn’t be asked to match a shirt and tie in the morning, be on equal footing with someone who has spent years thinking about what a building or a business card should look like. Someone has to say, “well, this isn’t actually that nice.”

Plenty of people have so far, though their skills at doing so, and their diplomacy, have varied. Everyone has learned to keep Holly Hotchner under wraps. Cloepfil is more measured, calling it a “’moment in style,’ but not a pivotal work”. That framing underscores the bifurcation in the preservation mind, which rankles at the notion that something as capricious as a human mind can make a gradation of value about objects, instead of kowtowing to the implacable truth of Mother Time, but nonetheless is just fine with telling people that a size of brick is ‘out of character’.

Though it has been rightfully pointed simply because a building has been neglected is no justification for demolition, at least without a hearing, except this building has had one. And it was neglected in the middle of Manhattan, 30 years after the sea change of Penn Station, for years. MAD took the site expecting to be able to make significant changes, and this has been known for years. The commission acted. Hearing were held, rulings made. It’s time pack up and go home, Landmarks West!

UPDATE: I know it seems like well-planned synergy, but isn’t: turns out I was painting the AIA as tad more strident (I cast my irresponsbility in the direction of the good folks at the Observer, who aren’t afraid to mince words) than they want to be. In fact, they are sponsoring a roundtable today (Columbus Day, for anyone who has missed the point) on this very topic, with speakers to include: Vishaan Chakrabarti, AIA, Vice President at The Related Properties; Thomas Mellins, author and architectural historian, Christopher Nolan, Vice President for Capital Projects at the Central Park Conservancy and Phillip Pittruzello, Vice President for Corporate Real Estate at Time-Warner. They welcome the Landmarks West! folks, as well as anyone else wanting to particpate (go ask Phil why the most expensive mall in the world is so damn bland!) in a conversation about the past, present and future of Columbus Circle. 6PM at the Center.

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Freedom that dares not speak its name.

By admin | Published: September 29, 2005

Or something. Careful and considered writing at this point seems pretty useless in the face of “an uplifting story of decency triumphing over depravity“. All that really is left to be said is that the mealy-mouthed fools who penned Pataki’s statement had the good sense — if it can be called that — to not use the full name of the banned institution, which will be honored here, since clearly there is no place for it in a world of… well, I guess the city must wait for new instructions from Decency Central. Decency. Like ashes in the mouth, absent any sense humanity or rationality, we suffer this idiocy. Every new drop in the pool of evidence is greeted with the vicious denial that demands we ignore what is plain to see in the day and downright terrifying in the night. Strike up the violins.

UPDATE: Turns out Pataki wasn’t so circumspect (full text, via The Real Estate), but the whole statement is such a pile of unmitigated dung that it’s even worse that the avoidance presumed from the excerpt in the Times. I guess we can look forward to Debra Burlingame patrolling the “memorial quadrant” for years to come to insure ‘decency.’ She’d better, because I’ll be there, to tell a story of cowardice and shame. What’s next? A city ordinance restricting speech about anything that doesn’t venerate the hallowedness of 9/11 victims and their clamoring for sanctification relations? Really. If we can’t put a picture of MLK in a building, can I wear a tee shirt with him on it? Have any of these people heard of the First Fucking Amendment?

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You should have gone before you left home.

By admin | Published: September 23, 2005

The saga of public restrooms here in what we like to think of as the first world stumbled forward another halting step with the city finally — a term deployed with much skepticism — awarding a contract to subsidiary of a Spanish conglomerate that has managed to build seven toilets in Rio in three years. One of the qualifications must have been expertise with New York development and construction.

There don’t seem to be any details about the important stuff: where the 20 will go. Will there be token placements in the outer boroughs, reducing the Manhattan total (of course we expect them all to be in Manhattan) to 16? Will hipsters be mad or glad at emplacements on Bedford or Clinton? Will the UES get all NIMBY, worried about undesirables?

Will Community Boards have a say, or veto, about the locations? This is a surefire recipe for disaster; why would a someone who has ready access to their own bathoom at home support a public restroom that will — cue paranoid suburban protectionism here — attract drug addicts, prostitutes, or worse, Sex and the City tour patrons? Will there be a facility for voting up locations? And is 20 all we get? If you are counting, that’s one per every 150,000 people (daytime population). If so, you’d better get in line now. Should 20 minutes be allotted to each client, you won’t get your turn for something like 5 years, give or take a few months.

And what will they look like? One of the upside qualities touted in the Times coverage is that diversity of the designs evidenced in the Rio contract. However, one of the stated goals of the “street furniture” contract (aside from driving the New York Press out of business, if you believe their paranoia, even though that seems to have happened no thanks to the city) was unification of designs, particularly newspaper boxes and newsstands.

Given the that Parks Departments has crossed over like every totalitarian landmarks group, mandating everything be enrobed in green-painted wrought iron filigree, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything as inspired as the ARO recruiting station in Times Square.

But as long as Starbucks grow like weeds around Manhattan, the whole restroom debate will be largely symbolic. One of the other major elements of this contract — paper boxes and newsstands — raise some sticky issues. The Press wrapped their concerns about circulation in a freedom of the press argument, but they have a point. As a matter of space (though not expense) the public sphere is a blank slate (well, as blank as any particular corner of daisy chained plastic distro boxes get). It’s not clear how access will be handled going forward. Can papers buy exclusivity in certain locations? If it takes these folks three years to build an outhouse, what happens in areas where they haven’t installed new boxes? And, like the restrooms, who will adjudicate quantity and location? It seems impossible that they have a strategy that will result in the same level of availability as currently (which, if you are a tree hugger, maybe isn’t a bad thing).

Will similar issues arise at the newsstands? Though they typically don’t have the broadest array of inventory, they are often very responsive to the vagaries of local population (the range of fashion publications to the found along Seventh Avenue in the 30’s is pretty impressive). Assuming that any big company ethos brings big company blandness, will this be the advent of the Clear Channeling of newsstands? It seems highly unlikely that any contract will mandate what is sold where, so it the city basically packaging a monopoly on newspaper and magazine distribution? If so, a billion dollars over twenty years seems awfully small (even if it’s compared to the forty three cents the city will make from the Atlantic Railyards deal).

Given all the daily slights and challenges perambulating the city present, is this really Job One? I didn’t see anything in the various write ups to indicate that somehow matching newsstands will stem the plague of overflowing trashcans or change the impenetrable pickup schedule that seems to mandate that you can’t walk a block at night (and hell, most days) without shuddering past a mountain of garbage sure to release a rodent in your path any second.

The newsstands don’t really seem that broken. Sure, some of them could be cleaned up a bit, but perhaps some intermediary steps could be taken to test the resolution of that problem before we hand over control of a big chuck of our streetscape to a company that still has to complete a major contract?

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